Widgenie – smart, gorgeous data visualisation tool comes online

Widgenieis one of those sparklingly beautiful single function web applications which make you want to scream with joy. OK, well perhaps that’s a little over the top, but these apps – like wufoo.com and gliffy.com – really do make business applications simple to use in a way that I’ve not seen since the early days of shareware.

There’s nothing really rocket science about making charts and tables from spreadsheet or .cvs data, but this app does it all in such a lovely drag and drop, Ajax enabled, big font user happy way that you really get a kick out of the task.

There’s not much to describe. Sign up for a free account, upload your data (yes there are restrictions, so don’t expect to use that 3000 cell 3D Excel spreadsheet will you?) and select the type of output you want. The system currently offers five formats, including pie, bar and area charts and you can edit some basic settings such as size, captions and orientation in a matter of seconds.

Once you’re satisfied with the changes you see in the live preview, you can select whether to use the direct URL link, or embed it into your website via the Javascript code. There are also iGoogle and Blogger widget options for those who are that way inclined. And that’s it. Oh and you can track usage of your widget via your control panel to see how many people view your creation.

Nothing fancy, nothing particularly clever, just a good clean application which provides a useful service for a great price. Well worth bookmarking.

What types of new widgenies will I be able to create in the future? A. We have plans for many innovative items like Heatmaps and even your own Calendars as a widgenie.